Arts & Music

San Francisco's a fugly town for fugly people who are happy being rather fugly. Which is why Tricia Kanne from San Francisco indie rock quintet Minipop is such a stand-out in the scene. She's not fugly. At all.

"She's like a cross between Lisa Loeb and the Cranberries, and she's hot," said one female attendee, admiring Tricia's bass playing and cooing lead vocals over what's otherwise a rather traditional arrangement of guitars, U2's effects pedals (delay, flange, light overdrive), electric bass, and drums.

Minipop just got done introducing the country to their new sound, including a SXSW date in Austin, and now they're back on their home turf, headlining The Owl Magazine's second birthday party at the Mezzanine near 6th and Mission in San Francisco Friday night. Party hats and birthday cake never showed up, but whiskey and cigarettes substituted nicely over five similar sounding bands summed up quickly here:
Finding Mercury = Coldplay/U2
Lovelikefire = Finding Mercury bettered by the novelty of a female Asian lead singer singing I want you deadPoor Bailey = a country Finding Mercury with harmonica
Maldroid = goobers in brown suits
and then Minipop: Finding Mercury bettered by novelty of Tricia.

Kanne may be a one-note pony, but that note is a "C" and the band belonged atop the heap of tepid acts content to make the sonic equivalent of knock-off Levi's. The Mezzanine filled to only maybe thirty percent capacity, partially because the shoegaze's narrow cast. So: recommendations for Owl Mag's Year #3 Birthday line-up (given that The Owl Mag is run by exactly one dude with little resources)? Celebrate the WHOLE Bay and party harder with some g-strings, face paint, hyphy, flannel and noise.
The Owl Party's Third Birthday Line-up (theoretical):
Opener: The Extra Action Marching Band
#2: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum,
#3: Trackademics
#4: Kid 606
And the HEADLINER: High On Fire
--David Downs